Chris Hurn Interview With Bill RancicBill: Hey, guys. It’s Bill Rancic. Chris: Hey, Bill. It’s Chris. How ya doing? Bill: Good. How are you? Chris: Good. Bill: Well, you read to get going? Chris: Sure. I think we got – this is recording, right? Male: Yeah. Chris: All right. Good. I’m just gonna keep you on speaker. We normally – I do these every month with bestselling authors and normally I have a crowd of people and do Q&A at the end, but we’re just gonna do just you and I this time ‘cause it’s kind of short notice. Bill: Okay. Chris: First of all, do you know much about me? I don’t know what the relationship is with Nick and you. Bill: What do you mean? Chris: Are you a client of Nick’s now, _____? Bill: Well, Nick does some stuff for me, yeah. Chris: Oh, okay. All right. Do you know – maybe you don’t even know what we’re talking about. Do you know about Kennedy’s All-American Barber Club? Bill: No. Chris: All right. Let me give you some feedback and _____ this stuff. We do a 32-page monthly magazine that we publish. I run a company called “Mercantile Commercial Capital.” We were on the Inc 500 last year as one of America’s fastest growing companies. We got awards as long as your arm. Done a lot of stuff. Financed a lot of franchises around the country. Nick, myself, and two other guys actually bought a membership-based barbershop franchise and we are actually franchising it around the country so much so that we actually even have our own magazine. Bill: Wow. That’s great. Chris: So that’s _____. (Crosstalk) Bill: _____. Chris: What’s that? Bill: How many stores do you have around the country? Chris: We’ve already – we only did this – we bought the franchise, the predecessor franchise, in August, mid-August, converted it to the name of “Kennedy’s,” made some tweaks with some of the offerings that they’ve got. We’ve already got six done. We’ve just signed a super-master deal, which will take care of all the rest of the territories in Florida and Michigan. It’s about 130 to 195 units. We’ve got about another dozen coming online in the next 60 days or so. Then we’ve got a couple more masters that we’re selling as well. So it’s – we’ll probably have 2 to 330 units here by this time next year _____. Bill: People need to get their hair cut. It’s pretty much recession proof, I would imagine. Chris: Well, that’s just it. It’s a necessity-based business and it’s – you guys, you’re probably familiar. You live in Chicago now, right, or are you out in LA? Bill: I’m in LA right now. We go back and forth. So I leave for Chicago on Saturday. Chris: Right. Well, either way, you’re probably familiar with things that are like us that are independent. There’s a place in Beverly Hills – I can’t remember what it’s called – but it’s a place where you can go and get a straight razor shave and a haircut. There’s John Allan’s salons in Manhattan. They just opened one in Chicago. Similar type concept. Our is a little bit different in that we do all those services, but it’s a little less expensive and it’s sort of a democratized upscale barbershop. It’s a club. It’s membership-based, so people pay us a monthly fee to be a part of it. It’s unlimited haircuts and shaves and all sorts of stuff. It’s pretty cool. We’re having a lot of fun with it. So that’s one of the relationships that I have with Nick and then and I also teach business success strategies in marketing to groups of entrepreneurs and business owners every month as well. So that’s our connection. You met me at – here in Orlando at the YPO group last summer actually. Bill: That’s right. That’s right. Chris: _____, right. Yeah. We graduated – Bill: That was a great spot they had that at. Chris: – yeah. Oh, it was a beautiful place. Yeah. Actually, I financed a number of the office condos in that building. But yeah, you and I, we went to Loyola together, but I know – I don’t think I ever met you. Bill: That’s right. That’s right. Now I remember you. Chris: Yeah. I was up at Lakeshore most of the time. I think you were at Watertower most of the time. Bill: I was at Watertower, yeah. Chris: Yeah. Exactly. Bill: Oh, that’s funny. Chris: All right. So that’s the background. So that’s who I am. Okay. Bill: Oh, that’s perfect. Chris: We’ll talk a little bit about the book. Obviously, a lot of people – your tie-in and connection with Trump is still pretty powerful. A lot of people want to know stuff about that. So let’s – you want to start with the book, or you want to kind of – you want to tell me what –? (Crosstalk) Bill: Whatever works _____. You run the interview. Chris: All right. Bill: So however you want to do it, I’m easy. Chris: All right. Let’s start with some of The Apprentice stuff and then let’s move forward from there, okay? Bill: Okay. Sure. Chris: So why – in your words, why do you think you got hired by Trump in Season 1 of The Apprentice? Bill: Well, I think there were a number of reasons. One, I had a good work ethic. Chris: Right. Bill: Two, I was able to deliver results But one of the things I always talk about in my speeches is that I think there are three reasons why people are successful and why they’re able to stand out from the pack. The first one is a term called “practical execution.” I firmly believe in this. I think a lot of people talk a great game and they claim that they’re gonna accomplish so much. I find that most of those people that talk such a big game are just talkers and that’s it. In actuality, I didn’t do a lot of talking on The Apprentice. I kept my mouth shut. I put my head down and I worked hard and delivered results. So I think that’s critical. I think you have to also be agile. You’ve got to be willing to change up your game plan. Given the current economic conditions, we’re finding this ever so important. Those people who are able to adapt and have agility are the ones that are gonna survive this economic crisis. Those that don’t, won’t. It’s quite simple. You’ve got to be willing to take the blinders off and almost be on a swivel and see what’s happening and be able to adjust as it’s happening. Chris: I always call that as the business world equivalent of Darwinism. It’s not the strong or the swift. It’s the most adaptive that survive. Bill: That’s exactly it. That’s exactly it. Lastly, it’s about risk. You’ve got to be willing to take risks. As you probably know, you talk to a lot of people who claim they’re entrepreneurs and they think they’re big risk takers. They don’t know how to manage the risk. You’ve got to manage the risk and many times you got to micromanage that risk. In the end, you’ve got to convert it into success. Otherwise, it’s wasted risk. Chris: Right. I think that’s a good point. Let’s talk about what do you think your single greatest lesson you learned from Trump was, whether on the show or since? Bill: Well, I learned a lot from Trump. I’m very grateful for the opportunity that he gave me and how he opened up his world to me, which is incredible. But I think a couple things really stand out. One, one thing about Donald Trump, he’s not afraid to think big. I’ve been guilty of it where I haven’t taken the net and thrown it out far enough or wide enough when I should have. So I think you’ve got to be willing to think big. You’ve got to believe in yourself, which is critical. He certainly believes in his abilities and he never quits. I think people give up too easily. I think we’re seeing that now with the young people. If they don’t hit a home run the first time at bat, the give up the sport, so to speak. I don’t think that’s a healthy way to be brought up. You’ve got be willing to go at it four, five, ten, thirty times until you get it. Chris: Well, it strikes me – you obviously know him much more than I do. But he seems to have blurred the distinction a little bit between work and play too. I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, that’s what a lot of us strive to get to. Would you say that’s a fair characterization? Bill: Well, he loves what he does. I think anyone who loves what they’re doing will be successful at it. My dad, when I was a kid, he always used to say, “Find something that you really love to do and the money will follow.” I never wanted to believe him. I was like, “I want the money. I want the money. I want the money.” But there’s a lot of truth to that. I see that now with friends of mine who are doing these jobs that they hate and they’re never able to get to the level of success that they should because they can’t wait to get out of the office at 5:01 and in the morning they’re miserable. They have to hit their alarm clock snooze button ten times in order to muscle themselves out of bed. When you love what you’re doing, which I’ve been fortunate enough to always love what I’ve been doing, you pop out of bed before the alarm clock goes off. Chris: Then you don’t go to bed until midnight or later a lot of times. Bill: That’s right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Chris: So all right. On the project that you had in Chicago, that you won, how much control did you really have over that? What was your day like when you were working there? __________, right. Bill: I’m sorry. Yeah. It’s the old Sun Times building. Chris: Right. Bill: They put the Trump International Tower up there, which is a beautiful building. There was no typical day. It was – every day was different. I was fortunate because Donald was very involved in that project. It was his baby. I also spent a lot of time with a gentleman by the name Greg Cuneo, who’s the chairman of a major construction company called “HRH.” They both kind of mentored me. At the end of the day, I was learning. I’ve never built a 90-story high-rise before. Not many people in this world have. So these guys showed me how these things are built. It was a multimillion-dollar education that I received. Chris: Now, it was a – I know it started as a – I think it was a six-month apprenticeship, but you stayed on past that, correct? Bill: That’s right. Yeah. It was initially gonna be a one-year deal. The one-year turned into two and I wound up staying for several years. Chris: Okay. Are they – I believe the building is done now. But they’re still selling condos in there, aren’t they? Bill: That’s right. The building’s up. They’ve topped the building off. Chris: It’s CO’d now? Bill: They’re just trimming out – well, the hotel is fully functioning, fully operational. The condos, they’re just trimming them out. But many of the condos are occupied. You go floor by floor by floor. Chris: Sure. Sure. Exactly. All right. So I’ll ask a couple more questions on The Apprentice and we’ll get off that. But what do you think you did quickly to get noticed by Trump on The Apprentice? ‘Cause I think some people actually – your critics would say you kind of hung back and you just submitted that – you just kept your mouth shut and you did what you were supposed to do the best you could. What do you think you did that really took his nose? Bill: Well, I delivered victories. Every time I was a project manager, I brought in big wins, not just wins, big wins, where I annihilated the other team. I was creative in how I did it. I thought that was critical. But lying back, I didn’t lie back. I was taking the temperature of the room and trying to size up the competition and see what I needed to do. Obviously, my strategy was effective because I won. Chris: Right. Exactly. Well, I think from a viewer’s perspective, it’s tough for us. Through the magic of television editing, I’m sure – I have no idea what your day was like. I don’t know how – was that two weeks the entire season? I don’t know. Maybe you can enlighten us on that. But that’s probably why some of the critics felt like you were kind of hanging back ‘cause probably don’t know that you guys are cramming in projects like every day or maybe twice a day or maybe twice a day. I don’t know. Bill: Every episode was about four days. Chris: Oh, was it really? Okay. Bill: Yeah. It was tough. There were no days off. We operated on very little sleep every night. The conditions were stressful. You’re living with 15 other people as a grown adult. That’s not the easiest thing to do. I had a roommate. It was very difficult to run on three, four, hours of sleep, sometimes two a night, for weeks. This went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. So your body breaks down mentally and physically. You’re at the end of the line. Chris: Yet at the same time, you did what a lot of people in business wish they could probably do more of, which is you had such concentrated actions in what you were doing. You were so focused on the task at hand without virtually no distractions. I think it’s a – I can’t remember what episode it was. Maybe it wasn’t even your season, but writing a children’s book in two days or something like, you can’t really do that in the real word. But because of the atmosphere and the environment that you’re in, I think that enabled some of that to happen. Bill: Yeah, definitely. I think you’ve – that was it. You were eating it, breathing it, and sleeping it. Not really sleeping it ‘cause you didn’t get much sleep. But yeah, it was around the clock. I’d be four or five morning coming back to get an hour or two of sleep before we had to go out and do it all over again. So it was exciting. It was fun to be in that environment with great people who were very smart and like-minded. So you kind of were able to feed off each other. You elevate your game when you’re around people who bringing their A game. Everyone brought their A game. Chris: Right. Right. All right. Now, let me ask you a difficult question. If you don’t answer, that’s fine. But this is – everybody wants to know, and it’s gonna go out to thousands of our members and our non-members as well. Everybody wants to know, what’s Trump’s biggest failure in your opinion? Bill: I don’t know. Chris: You probably share my philosophy about failure, which is if you’re a true entrepreneur, you love what you do, as long as you learn from failures, there’s never really any failure per se. Bill: Yeah. I guess a failure is when you do it multiple times. Chris: Right. Exactly. Bill: You make the mistake multiple times. The guy, he’s won. I don’t think he’s had – everything happens for a reason. _____ a couple _____. Chris: _____ when you came back. Bill: Yeah, but everyone has. You come back stronger and bigger. Chris: Right. Bill: I don’t know. I can’t – only he can answer that question. But in my opinion, he’s a winner. He’s done everything he’s said he was gonna do. Chris: All right. Well, let’s talk about the book. The book came out – I think it came out right after – like six months after you won, didn’t it, or was it longer? Bill: It did. I think about six or eight months after, yeah, somewhere around there. Chris: What was your motivation to write the book? What _____ sort of the capsulation of your business philosophy? Candidly, I listened to it. I bought the audio book two, three, four years ago and listened to it. We didn’t have time with this interview today for me to re-listen to it. Bill: No, no. Yeah. Chris: Is that kind of what you were thinking? Bill: Well, you know what? I’d always read books along the way or skimmed them along the way and you would always get these books and they were written for people who had Harvard MBAs in these esoteric terms. I thought, “You know what? I’m a guy who was an entrepreneur ever since I was a little kid.” I wanted to come out with a book to, one, kind of speak to every man and not just a guy who’s got an Ivy League MBA. So if you’ll notice, the book’s written in terms that everyone can understand. I wanted to – I’m a believer in entrepreneurs and I want to fuel that spirit. I think it’s what made our country as great as it is. I thought this was a book that hopefully inspired and motivate people to go out and follow their dreams. If they have a dream of opening up barbershops around the country, then God bless them. I think they’ve got to believe in it. It’s been great getting emails from people and years later saying, “Hey, thanks for writing that book because I realized if you can do it, I can do it.” That’s true. I’m not a genius. I don’t have an Ivy League education. If I can do it, anyone can do it. Chris: But you keep saying the “Ivy League.” Fortunately and unfortunately, I went to Wharton after Loyola. But you and I both went to Loyala. But that’s _____. Bill: That’s right. That’s right. Chris: What do you think your strongest message that you want to relay to people is in the You’re Hired book? Then I should probably the book, of course, is called You’re Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life. Bill: Ah, the strongest message. I think when you think about my road and kind of my journey, there had been failures along the way. I think one of the things that I’ve noticed is that the kids today are not allowed to fail. Let me explain. Chris: No, I agree. Yeah, you’re right. Bill: When you see these parents and they are – when the kid is born, the kids are automatically put on these waiting lists to get into the right preschool so they can get into the right kindergarten, so they can get into the right grade school, so on and so on. These parents are putting so much pressure on these kids at such a young age, kids are afraid to make mistakes. They’re afraid to fail. Therefore, they don’t even try. That’s the biggest failure of them all. You’ve got to go out there and you’ve got to try everything. When I go and speak at universities around the country, I always tell these kids, “Go out there. It’s okay to start a small business when you’re in college. It may work. It may not. Get internships. You’ve to go out and experience things and find out what you like and what you don’t like. Otherwise, you’re gonna be 25 years old and you’re not gonna have any clue on what you really want out of life.” Chris: That’s right. Well, we’ve ruined it, even the competitive spirit. When you play little league and every single person gets the trophy these days, gee, _____. Bill: Yeah, or they don’t keep score. Chris: Right. Yeah. It seems asinine to me. Bill: _____. It’s not healthy. Chris: We’re creating a generation of, I don’t know, mediocre, I guess. Bill: Yeah. It’s not – I don’t think it’s healthy. Maybe I’m wrong. Chris: I’m with you. I think it’s not healthy either. So okay. You said a second ago, you’ve been an entrepreneur since you were young. That was my experience too. I actually started with the lawn/snow shovel removal business when I was about eight. How far back do you go, and what did you do? Give us sort of some of the stuff. I know about the Tagar Company and we should probably talk a little bit about that. Bill: Yeah. My first business was when I was ten years old. I had to spend the weekend at my grandmother’s and I learned how to make pancakes. The next morning, I got up and I called all the old ladies over and I invited them over for a pancake breakfast. We had a great time. When they left, I was clearing their plates away from the table and I noticed that each and every one of these women had left a five-dollar bill underneath the plate. I was stunned. I thought, “Wow. I’m on to something here.” For the next five weeks, I kept going to my grandmother’s for the weekends. My parents were wondering what was going on and they figured out I was running a makeshift restaurant out of my grandmother’s house. That was kind of my start as an entrepreneur. Chris: Well, hey, you were avoiding the health regulations, I guess, right. Bill: What’s that? Chris: I said you were avoiding the health regulators. Bill: Yeah. Well, at ten, I don’t think the 80-year-old women were – Chris: Yeah. No. I think you talk about that in the book actually. I remember that. Bill: – I do. Chris: Talk about the cigar company. You were – you started at, what, right out of college? Bill: Well, about eight or nine – I guess eight or nine months after I graduated, I suppose. It was pretty soon after I graduated. Bill: Just out of an idea. Had an idea and no one was doing it. I think we were the first ever cigar of the month club to come out and experienced a favorable response right out of the gate. We had a tremendous amount of momentum going. That was it. I never really smoked cigars until I started the company. It wasn’t like I was cigar aficionado and I needed to get a cigar business. It was just seizing an opportunity. That is what I had done. It was right before the cigar bloom was about to explode. I don’t know if you remember. Chris: I do, yeah. Bill: There was a time when Demi Moore was smoking cigars and Schwarzenegger and it was like the hottest thing going. We started this company right about when that started to take off. So the timing was – it couldn’t have been better. Chris: All right. But what was – there had to have been a model. I don’t think anybody just comes up with an idea off the top of their head. It was – Bill: Well – Chris: – so it was a burgeoning industry, about to be a big trend. But how did you – by the month I think is a brilliant model. That’s what Kennedy’s is about, monthly membership, continuity. Bill: – right. Chris: What did you base it off of? Were there – I don’t remember back – Bill: I knew the guys that – I’m sorry. Go ahead. Chris: – no. I was just gonna say, did you – back then, were there beers of the month? I’ve obviously given that as gifts for years to people, but I don’t remember if that existed back then. Bill: It did actually. Yeah. That was kind of a – I’d known the guys that had done the beer of the month. I read about the guy doing wine. I thought, “Hmm.” I decided to do this. One of the people I actually called up was the guy who started Vermont Teddy Bear. Chris: Oh, yeah, sure. Sure. Bill: A guy named John Sortino. I’ll never forget this man. I called him and I said, “I’m thinking about starting this _____ month club _____. Can you give me some advice?” The guy took my call and he gave me advice. I was shocked because I wouldn’t have wanted to convolute the space. I would have thought, “Why create another competitor?” But he kind of given me some tips and some guidance on how to buy radio advertising and I’ve never done that before. That was it. We let it rip. Chris: Now, there’s an interesting story in the book, I remember, about how you kind of got a break and, in classic fashion, you kind of created it with the what I would now refer to as a “shock in all box.” We actually have our own with Kennedy’s that we send out to potential franchisees. That’s how you got on the radio _____, wasn’t it? You want to tell the story? Bill: Yeah. It was – I was going in. I was resigning from my job that I had had. I had taken a job right out of college selling commodity metal. I was going in to resign from my job and the owners of the company laughed at me and they thought it was – I was explaining how I was gonna become a millionaire with the cigar business and I was gonna be leaving. They sat across the table and they laughed at me. It made me mad. As I was driving back to the office where the cigar company was run out of, I was so determined to prove these guys wrong. I got back and I had wrote a letter asking for help. I put the letter in a box and I put some cigars in there and went and got these little Coke bottle glasses that you wear on Halloween, the nerd glasses. I put a little note on the glasses. The note read, “Please take a closer look at my business idea.” I sent them out to the top ten morning radio stations in Chicago. About a week later, I got a call from the No. 1 morning radio show and she said, “Scott’ll have you on the air to talk about cigars of the month.” Sure enough, I went in there and the guy hammed it up and we went on the air for about 40 minutes just talking about this product and he was continually giving out the 1-800 number and the website. When I got back to the apartment where our office was, every phone we had in there was ringing off the hook with people wanting to place orders. So that was kind of my lucky break. Chris: Well, it’s interesting you say that because when I started in my commercial finance company about six and a half years ago – and by the way, we’ve been successful through this downturn as well because we picked a niche and we stuck with it. We finance commercial property for business owners and entrepreneurs all around the country. I had the same experience. People actually laughed at us. They thought I was crazy to try and focus on such a narrow niche that I didn’t want to do the banker all things to all people model. Literally, it pissed me off pretty good too. We’ve channeled that for the last six and a half years here at your company. Obviously, we had some success with it. It’s funny, Bill, that not a lot of people talk about that as a big motivator. But the more entrepreneurs I know, the more people I know that have had success and have done something that’s kind of defied the odds, _____ conventional wisdom, a lot of them have this type of experience Any thoughts on that? Bill: Well, I think there’s always gonna be those people around you who don’t want you to succeed. They may be your friends, believe it or not. _____. There’s those that feel the need to pull others down in order to build themselves up. That’s a fact of life. You got to – you want to stay away from those people, but also use it as motivation. When you’re waking up at five in the morning to go to the dream, that’s motivation. You got to take the motivation in any way you can get it. Chris: Yeah. No. I agree. And channel it. Yeah. No question. I call it the – Bill: There’s gonna be times when you want to question why the hell am I doing this and is it really worth it because you’re getting up and you’re working your tail off, but you’re not seeing results. Chris: – right. Bill: That’s one area where you can pull from. Chris: No. I agree. Well, did you ever have it in your mind that – I think you made The New York Times Bestseller List with your book. Was that ever something that you dreamed of or you thought would _____ happen with this? Bill: _____. No. Come on. That was – it was – everything over the last seven years has been just a world wind, an amazing experience for me. I’ve been able to learn and grow from it. I’ve been able to do some pretty neat things. Writing two books. I also wrote a kids’ book called Beyond the Lemonade Stand and it was for kids between the ages of eight and thirteen to kind of bring out their entrepreneurial spirit Chris: I didn’t know that. Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that I’ve been able to get two books published by major publishers has been a dream come true. I’ve always enjoyed writing. My parents were teachers. So for me to be able to write a book to help teach kids how to become honorable entrepreneurs was kind of the passing of the torch from my parents to me. I’m teaching them in my own way. Chris: Right. Right. Now, I know you talk about this in the book a little bit. Your parents being teachers, you wouldn’t normally think of teachers being so supportive of entrepreneurship, but your parents have really been kind of your cheerleaders, haven’t they? Bill: Absolutely, yeah. They’ve been by my side and helped and always encouraged me to try whatever my heart and soul was into. So they’re – I give them all the credit. Chris: Well, let’s talk about what you’re doing these days ‘cause I think when you came down here in June and had talked to our YPO group here in Orlando, I think you were just about to launch a new television show. You want to talk about that and how that sort of –? Bill: Yeah. Well, when I was down there, we were in the middle of filming. Chris: That’s right. Yeah. Right. Bill: The show is called – actually, it’s called We Mean Business. It’s a show where I go in to small businesses that are having difficulty and try to give them a complete turnaround from a physical standpoint, redoing their – and trying to readjust the way they think and their mindset because we can go in and make physical changes and update their technology and help them with marketing, but if their mindset doesn’t change, then they’re not gonna succeed. Chris: Yeah. It’s all about mindset. Yeah. Bill: Yeah. We’ve been – we faced some challenges. Some companies we’ve been able to help. Others, we haven’t. But it’s a show that airs on A&E on Saturday mornings. It’s been a lot of fun to do and very rewarding because we were able to – especially given the current economic conditions – we were able to make changes in these people’s lives that could potentially affect generations to come because this business could be passed on to their kids and their kids’ kids. That’s kind of powerful when you think about it. Chris: Yeah. Are you still in the first season? Are you starting to film a second season, or what? Bill: Well, we’re scheduled to possibly start again in the spring. We’re in discussions on that right now. Chris: Okay. How many episodes did you guys do? Do you remember? Bill: We did eight. Chris: Okay. Bill: We did eight episodes. I’m sure they’ll be more to come. Chris: So you’re kind of like a Gordon Ramsey in the kitchen just without the four-letter word, I take it. Bill: Without the foul mouth, yeah. Exactly. Chris: (Laughter) That’s good. That’s good. I’m surprised they haven’t done more stuff like that on TV actually. That’s one of the things I always appreciated about The Apprentice is you actually see real business lessons. I always thought Trump tried to – and maybe this was more Mark Burnett – tried to bring out the business lessons so that you actually walked away with something from watching an episode. Obviously, your show does that as well. But there’s very few shows on TV that do anything like at all. Bill: Yeah. I think people want to – they want the takeaways. People – the viewing audience is smarter and they expect more from the programming today. There’s a lot of shows out there that don’t provide that, but there are some that do. Sell This House and Flip This House and all these different programs that are out there, I think it helps people – it gives them ideas and motivates them. Chris: Right. So what are you up to these days? Besides the show, what are you doing these days? Bill: Well, I’m doing some real estate development right now. I’m actually – I’m a buyer in this real estate market. Chris: I don’t blame you. Bill: I think there’s some opportunities out there. So I’ve been doing that. I do a lot of speaking around the country. I’m still on the board of the company that I started. We merged into other divisions and really were no longer in the cigar business anymore. But I sit on the board of directors of Synergy Brands, which is a – we manufacture food and baking products. Chris: Is it sold on a monthly membership basis? Bill: No, no, no, no. We actually manufacture food products for companies and they put their own label on it. So for example, Wal-Mart will – or Walgreen’s – we manufacture the salt and pepper grinders with the Walgreen’s name on there. We do cake mixes and baking mixes for different national chains. We private label them at our factory. Chris: Sure. Sure. So is that based out of Chicago? Bill: No. We have a corporate office in New York and we have actually have a sugar refining plant in Michigan. Chris: Oh, all right. Okay. So you’re keeping busy with that. Most of your real estate projects, where are they at? LA? Chicago? Bill: Chicago. Chris: All over? Bill: Yeah, Chicago. I try to – I like Chicago. I’ve got a real good network of people there and a good team. The projects that I buy are usually gut rehabs. So we go in and we find the ugliest, nastiest projects out there and we make them look pretty. Chris: Right. Now, Chicago is still my favorite big city. I’m originally from down state outside of Peoria. So that was me going to the big city when I was went to Loyola. Bill: Yeah. That was a big move. Chris: Yeah, it was. It was. All right. I got to ask the question ‘cause – actually, I had my coaching group that I meet with once a month, all day long. I told them I was gonna interview you today, and on of the guys said, “Well, ask him why Trump doesn’t come to Kennedy,” which was obviously a commentary on Trump’s rather interesting hair, which of course is a talking piece. I can understand from a marketing perspective why he keeps it. But any comments on that, or do you want to be diplomatic? Bill: No, no comments on that. _____. Chris: All right. Bill: I have no problem. It works. Chris: Yeah. Exactly. Bill: You’ve got one the most beautiful women in America married to him, so he’s doing something right. Chris: Yeah, he is. No question. Well, anything we haven’t covered that you want to chat about? Bill: No. I think – Yeah. I think it’s an exciting time. It’s a scary time right now. But I think there’s gonna be a lot of wealth created from what’s happening right now. I think people can’t be afraid to seize opportunity. Chris: Yeah. You’re speaking at a franchise finance conference in May that I’m speaking at as well. I think you’re the keynote and I’m the next day. So maybe if you get a chance – Bill: Well, I’m glad I don’t have to follow you. That’s a good thing. Chris: - (Laughter) oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll see. But I’ll be talking about Kennedy’s and what we’re doing. It is a pretty exciting time. I’m a practitioner of what my philosophy as well, which is I’m right there with you. I think now is when a tremendous amount of wealth is gonna be made. You buy when it’s low and hopefully you get out when it’s high. But you can’t follow herd. That’s what way too many people did over the last couple of years, I’m afraid. Bill: That’s exactly it. Boy, it’s scary. Chris: Yeah. Exactly. Well, hey, Bill, I’ll let you go. I appreciate you your time. Bill: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you. Chris: Yeah. We covered a lot of stuff here. You have a – I always have ask. You have a website or something where we should send people to if they’re interested in –? Bill: Billrancic.com. Chris: Okay. All right. That’s obviously B-I-L-L-R-A-N-C-I-C.com. All right. They can get both books there as well? Bill: They can get both books there, Amazon, Borders. You can get it at pretty much most bookstores, I would imagine. Chris: All right. I’m gonna go check out the Beyond the Lemonade Stand myself ‘cause I got two young kids and I’m already working on them, teaching them business. I don’t find too many children’s books that do. So that’s terrific. I appreciate your doing that. Bill: Yeah. No, please do. I’ll see you in Chicago. Chris: All right. Well, if not, I’ll see you in Vegas for sure. Bill: In Vegas for sure, definitely. Chris: All right. Take care, Bill. Bye. About The Author:
A few other business achievements Chris has received:
Throughout his career, Chris has been in various leadership positions, including his background as business consultant and financier with GE Capital and as CFO for the NAI RealVest group of companies. Chris’ educational achievements are equally impressive. He graduated from Loyola University with two magna cum laude Bachelor Degrees; earned a Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business); and only spent one year at Georgetown University Law Center before wising-up about becoming an attorney. Chris is a frequent speaker and writer and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, LA Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Orlando Sentinel, Scotsman Guide and many other regional and nationally-recognized trade publications. He maintains a busy civic calendar as a Board member with the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business Board and the Florida Hospital Foundation Board, as well his involvement with many other esteemed community organizations. Chris is married to his wife of 12 years, Shannon, and has two children, Reilly and Julianna. |
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Chris Hurn is currently President, CEO, Cofounder and Board member of 
